Mathman - I liked the bite about “performing art component”. The word choice matters indeed, given that “art” may mean quite a lot (so, art stands for “quality, skill”, as well as “creativity, freedom”, or for “trade, branch” as such or “beauty, harmony” as such) plus there are aspects of social and political development, like machin pointed out (it’s a smile, machin; note that I don’t laugh!). What makes it interesting about FS, is that human body is the tool [of performing art] so there are natural limits before any rules. I’m not the FS history expert but it looks logical to me that earlier in its development FS had more “creativity” and less “skills” in its performing art component because the exploration of natural limits was in progress. At a certain stage, both sport and art really might seem applicable to this process [exploring the limits of what human body can do when skating] trying to achieve more both in direction of athletics and expression. However today, FS has pretty much hit the limits; it’s significantly more about “skills” than about “creativity” and it often fails to live up to the expectation that general public has about either art or sport. In other words, it has become boring. [Well, and then there is the organization of the system that doesn’t help the matters.] That’s about my vision of sport/art in figure skating.

(I’m still waiting if somebody bites the points regarding subjectivity of the individual/collective agreement but I can imagine that it might be far less interesting to discuss )

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.

Originally Posted by dorispulaski

Yes, watching a painter paint is not necessarily a great joy either. It doesn't keep the result from being art.

Ice sculpture is another good example.

But the judges would have their work cut out for them. Beautiful, grotesque, or hilarious?

(I’m still waiting if somebody bites the points regarding subjectivity of the individual/collective agreement but I can imagine that it might be far less interesting to discuss )

The trick is, the closest thing to social legacy in arts is the relation between tradition and novelty and, instead of following the rules of tradition, the artist is expected to innovate and change them.

I know nothing about art -- but I know what I like. Here is a lovely handbag, featuring the Pell Bridge, named after Michelle Kwan's grandfather-in-law:

That is a very cool point about the tension between tradition and the breaking of tradition. There are a few concepts that do seem to be universally valued in art, such as symmetry and ratio/proportion. But then come startling works that strike us exactly because of a violent violation of these expectations.

The relation between art and craft is also intriguing. People who self-conscious;ly sit down to write the Great American Novel usually come up empty, while many of the towering works of literature were jotted down by some guy simply trying to make a buck (Shakespeare, Dickens). I wonder if the same thing doesn't happen in figure skating sometimes. The choreographic masterpiece falls flat while the girl who is just wants to land her triple flip ends up with the crowd- (and judges-) pleasing gem.

I guess the more you know about art, the less you can enjoy it so obviously it pays to stay as ignorant as possible. I often feel like that about figure skating and I might stick to this but handbags are too tempting –

There was one reason why the “art rules” discussion in previous page got derailed: basically, nothing that we can define as rules can wholly embrace the phenomenon. Some say it’s because of divine touch but I prefer to say it’s because of the complexity of image/phenomenon. Unlike the rules of a game that are agreed upon before the action starts, “rules of art” are time by time written by theorists post factum while the action has been on since the beginning of humanity and it’s simply impossible to cover the whole matter. Therefore, “rules” act like prejudices more often than not and that includes also rules that we have about our own likes/dislikes.

So this is very, very tricky and taking school figures for an art was the easiest part. Today we want art and we want figure skating rules that would encourage more art but how to get it? Inventing more regulations may easily bring the opposite effect and so may returning to less-or-no regulations regarding the artistic part.

I guess the more you know about art, the less you can enjoy it so obviously it pays to stay as ignorant as possible.

That is not a universal phenomenon. In fact, it's far less universal than the basic writing rules that you decry.

There was a period of time, after I did a lot of editing, when I started finding prose problems in books I was reading. I was afraid this would ruin books for me. Guess what? The feeling passed. I was able to shut off the editor's brain and enjoy books like I used to. And it also made me appreciate truly good prose a lot more than before.

Does the painter lose the ability to enjoy paintings? Ask any author out there--did becoming a professional writer cause them to dislike reading? These people learned the nuts-and-bolts behind the art, but that did not take away from its magic.

I think the problem with these discussions of artsiness in figure skating is that we are not actually talking about ART. When we say that a figure skater is "artistic" we mean that she moves gracefully, that she holds the landing edge of her triple Salchow a little longer than the other girls do, that she skates more vigorously when the music gets louder and faster and more languidly when the music gets "lyrical" -- that sort of thing. Janet Lynn is offered as an example of a skater who was good at that.

In modern times, these virtues have largely given way to a greater appreciation of maximum speed throughout, busy transitions, virtuoso footwork, changes of position in spins, and harder entries to jumps. People (like me) who were used to old-timey skating think the new stuff is less pretty.

That's fair As this new generation gets older and less tech savy we'll probably see a trending toward soft "more pretty skating". I think everything is in a bit of a proving ground state as everyone is scrambling to try and establish themselves on the scene today. Once order is in place and things become more certain we may start to see a return to the "pretty". So many youngsters now and it seems like they're certainly trying to be pretty out there.

The issue with talking about skaters and artistry is: who is defining what is considered "artistic"? I think Max is artistic, but there are plenty of people who would call me an idiot (and I have been called an idiot) for thinking so.

The issue with talking about skaters and artistry is: who is defining what is considered "artistic"? I think Max is artistic, but there are plenty of people who would call me an idiot (and I have been called an idiot) for thinking so.

To me, sport itself is artistry. There is nothing more artistic than a text-book perfect triple Axel.

The issue with talking about skaters and artistry is: who is defining what is considered "artistic"? I think Max is artistic, but there are plenty of people who would call me an idiot (and I have been called an idiot) for thinking so.

Agree with Mathman, sport is also another form of art.

I think people all have a certain common sense. If a skater has really good presentation, her movements would look more fluid and natural, even if she is playing the role of a robot. And I think that many people would agree even if her style is not their taste. They might acknowledge it deep down inside but don't want to admit.

For example, I am not Yuna and Mao's fan, but I have to admit their performances have great artistry (even though they are not my cup of tea).